First, kudos to Shawn for sending me this. Second, a profound look at what we have not learned from history

America, in her haste to become the most dominant military force on Earth, often goes off the reservation in search of chemicals which appear to be innocuous on their face. We were conned into this in 1961 with dioxin even though Monsanto was more than aware of the side effects of Agent Orange and its rainbow cousins. Porphyria Cutanea Tarda and Chloracne were well-known and described in contemporaneous literature four years before one ounce was sprayed in Southeast Asia. That didn’t deter the Deptartment of Defense then and it seems the same krewe is hard at it again.

It should not come as a surprise to anyone, be they a military strategist or scientist in their employ, that chemicals suitable for one job have the ability to become obnoxious when they turn up in unintended places. Add in chemicals from another country’s army which were not contemplated in the mix and you have the makings of a witch’s brew. This, then, seems to be what we are facing in Southwest Asia.

There are two insidious events with two different sets of chemicals or inert ingredients capable of causing long-term harm and the military is taking the same tortured path to recognition of the inevitable conclusion.  I characterize this ploy as uninformed denial or more simply put “Nobody told us.” Why is it that every possible study is ignored, denigrated, disparaged and thrown on the ash pile of scientific logic before some tenacious soul finally teases the truth out of it?

A case in point is Hepatitis C. After more than thirty eight years of yeoman service inoculating troops, the jetguns were quietly retired in 1998 with little fanfare. No mention was made of their inherent ability to cross-contaminate individuals. The military is nothing if not anal in trying to save money on any weapons system and the logic spilled over into medicine with what I consider horrible consequences. Now, with the evidence mounting and pointing to one common etiology, the military, and by extension, their lackeys at the vA, fall back on the lack of medical evidence to exonerate the jetgun’s culpability in all of this.

The military is fond of hiring Remington Rand or Morton Thiokol to do studies for them proving the efficacy of any given munition or missile.  White Sands and the Atomic Boys have been drafted to sell all manner of Poseidons to the American public. Their mantra is couched in  trademark phrases like “Studies show there is no inherent hazard associated with the use of this herbicide.” or my favorite “If it were detrimental, we wouldn’t employ it.”

This irrational rush to the ramparts in defense of weapons systems was no different when advances in medical knowledge accrued. This is what seemingly occurred at the dawn of the sixties. Munji Systems and Pedojet Industries were hell-bent to get their machines on the market and the military was a willing accomplice. With little or no testing to determine sterile potential, they were rushed into service at all the major intake centers for recruits. Little or no training of the medical personnel assigned to them was forthcoming. They were pretty much self-explanatory-Wipe occasionally. Pull trigger. Next? Jez. Homer Simpson could have taught Mojo how to do this in ten minutes or less.

In retrospect, with the chickens coming home to roost, the military and their civilian sidekicks at the vA feel no compelling desire now to revisit this and determine who was naughty and who was nice. A simplistic phrase was carefully constructed to cover this looming controversy in 2004. I refer, of course, to the infamous FAST letter wherein the vA begrudgingly admitted that it was merely “plausible” that HCV could be transmitted via a “pneumatic inoculation device” but that no definitive evidence was on record proving it. The study most often mentioned was of a weight loss clinic that used the Pedojet gun and inadvertently cross-contaminated patients with the Hepatitis B virus. Hence the logical assumption that, while it’s theoretically possible to transmit HCV via the gun, it has never actually been proven to have occurred. This is one of those rare instances where vA contradicts itself by saying in so many words “Absence of evidence is positive evidence that supports our argument”. Try using that logic in your HCV claim.

Next we turn to the relative “viability” of HBV and HCV. The vA maintains HBV is a much “heartier” virus than HCV. To what study they ascribe this is a mystery. vA nevertheless  takes it as an article of faith. Most recently, studies have shown that HCV is viable after drying on a surface for three months. Keeping in mind that HCV, like Ebola, is a single-stranded RNA virus, even the most naive observer would know its potential for infection in a  “hygiene-challenged”  environment. Diluting the conversation into a discussion of whether one virus is more viable than another is a hallmark of vA non-science.

Absent any medical proof of transmission, vA can legitimately say there is no proven correlation between jetguns and HCV. If that were then the end of this scientific investigation, there would be no controversy. However, when you see the same investigative technique, or should I say the glaring lack of any medical  inquiry into the why and how of Gulf War Illness (GWI) and its host of cousins waiting in the wings, you see the perfidy and collusion of which vA is capable. This is part and parcel of the M-21 methodology.

The Chicken Little Syndrome, whereby the military and vA steadfastly deny any possibility that the sky is falling, is endemic to the system. This has been so for decades. The “You can’t prove it and we are not about to find out why” is now the de facto default  setting. Ignorance is Bliss would be an apt motto.

I fear the next wave of Veterans will fight for aeons to get recognition for their “strange, unexplained illnesses” over the next 40 to 60 years. When sufficient numbers have succumbed and died, there will be an epiphany accompanied by browbeating,  mea culpas and the usual “If only we’d known.” Based on the article above, I submit that science is sufficiently adept at ferreting out the causes of these ailments and that the vA is unwilling to part with more funds to remunerate our Veterans or to commit to any serious investigation.

Think how easy it would be to put the HCV via jetgun argument to rest. As one reader with no scientific bent opined: “Obtain a Pedojet device. Inoculate me ten times without wiping the ‘nostril’. Allow me to jerk and slice my skin on the fifth shot. Turn to a pig and inoculate it ten times. Wait six weeks and do a PCR. Multiply this test scenario on ten HCV-positive subjects and collate the results. If HCV isn’t as hearty as its touted to be, this should put paid to it.” There isn’t enough money in vA’s coffers for this eventuality. There wasn’t enough for PTSD when we came home from Vietnam.  There isn’t enough now for Gulf War Illness and I have an unwelcome newsflash. There won’t be any on the horizon as longs as the current mindset and party mentality at VA continues. Bonuses for denying claims at near- outlandish levels is far more preferable to a nuanced study on the disease transmission capabilities of a discredited twentieth century medical device.

I give up. What’s wrong with this picture?

WHEN SCIENTIFIC

EVIDENCE IS INSUFFICIENT

IGNORANCE IS BLISS